Sarah's Inscriptions

 May 30, 2022 - Memorial Day Memorial Day used to be such an occasion for us.  Me, Heather, Mom, Aunt Diane, and Grandma would all go flower shopping beforehand, picking out the best geranium basket we could find, to deliver to Grandpa Harvey's grave on Memorial Day.  We would also travel to Clyde Park Ave to visit Grandma's parents, brother, and sister-in-law.  We sometimes even ventured into Jenison to visit Grandpa Larry.  It was a day of remembering everyone we had lost, while subconsciously celebrating those we still do with them. But now it's Memorial Day 2022, and only Heather and I remain from that long list of women.  Grandma Donna passed in September.  It hasn't even been a year yet, but I somehow feel like she's been gone for much longer than that.  Maybe it's just because, after someone does pass, you never see them again.  They're no longer physically with us, which can be hard to process.  No matter how many losses I have endured, it is still r

 May 17, 2022 (Tuesday) This entire week of my life so far (which has literally just been Monday and Tuesday, but damn it feels so much longer already), has been consumed with thoughts of guilt. Sunday night, my sleep was held off by the thought that I could have saved my mom. I don’t know if you’ve ever lost your mom, or anyone you love dearly, and if you’ve had similar thoughts, but they’re pretty brutal. The thing is, as I’m sure most of you all know, my mom died unexpectedly. She didn’t feel good the day before, and was gone by 6 the next morning.  But the other thing is, we had noticed her swollen ankles. A few weeks or months before she passed, because what is time, we noticed that her ankles were swollen for some reason. When we brought it to her attention, she said “thanks, now I’m going to worry about them.” In that sarcastic tone that only a woman plagued by a bunch of medical things can have. It wasn’t until her death certificates arrived that we learned her heart failed her